The Indie Royale Website offers the "Gone Fishin' Bundle," their latest collection of bargain-priced indie games. The bundle includes SOL: Exodus, All Zombies Must Die!, Cubemen, SQUIDS, Platformance: Castle Pain, and Platformance: Temple Death. Those who pay a few extra bucks will also receive a chiptune album. This trailer has more on the new promotion.

jacobvandy wrote on Aug 13, 2012, 02:59:If people want to be douchebags and squeeze double copies (or unlimited, DRM-free ones in the case of Humble Bundle, etc.) of the games out of one of these, that's their prerogative. I was scoffing at them literally saying "no, if you already have one of the games, you are not allowed to share the copy you just bought." Because that's what people do, they BUY these games, and for them to say that is just plain stupid. It's as if Amazon would tell me I'm not allowed to give keys for Magicka or Sword of the Stars to my buddy because I already had those, and only bought that Paradox Bundle for Crusader Kings II and SOTS II. Again, they can screw right off.

It's not really stupid. From a business standpoint, the appeal of bundles lies in the fact that people will buy them for one or two games, resulting in them also paying for the other games that they otherwise wouldn't have bought separately. Even if the profits per game are significantly lower than if you bought them individually, they're still better than no profits at all. However, if you give away individual games within the bundle, you're significantly decreasing the appeal of the bundle to prospective buyers. If I'm only interested in one or two games in the bundle and you give me those games for free, why would I buy the bundle?

Now, if we were talking about regular-priced bundles, your point would hold more merit. But these indie bundles are ludicrously cheap. They rely on large numbers of sales in order to generate any meaningful revenue and if you're giving away the games in the bundle to your buddies, you're undermining this. This is why Steam doesn't let you gift any extra copies of games you get from bundles and those bundles are significantly more expensive than these indie bundles. It's also why the Humble Bundles only give you one key for all the games, as opposed to individual keys per game.

So yes, it is your prerogative to do whatever you want with the games you get in bundles. But you should realize that your actions have consequences. If these bundles aren't profitable enough to be worth the time and effort needed to create them, they simply won't be created anymore.

If people want to be douchebags and squeeze double copies (or unlimited, DRM-free ones in the case of Humble Bundle, etc.) of the games out of one of these, that's their prerogative. I was scoffing at them literally saying "no, if you already have one of the games, you are not allowed to share the copy you just bought." Because that's what people do, they BUY these games, and for them to say that is just plain stupid. It's as if Amazon would tell me I'm not allowed to give keys for Magicka or Sword of the Stars to my buddy because I already had those, and only bought that Paradox Bundle for Crusader Kings II and SOTS II. Again, they can screw right off.

I was a fan of space shooters back in the dos days, and checked out the SOL Exodus demo during the Steam summer sale. It was rather flawed, and I opted out of the $10 bundle that it was a part of, but with this one being $5, I'll give it a shot.

jacobvandy wrote on Aug 12, 2012, 22:10:Ha ha, okay buddy. Good luck enforcing that. If I decide to give you some money in exchange for some game keys, whether you call it a purchase or a donation or whatever, they're MINE and I can do whatever I want with them. So screw off.

I can see where the issue would be with reselling the keys, but just giving them away doesn't change the economics of the bundle one iota (apart from possibly increasing a potential buyer's willingness to pay, something that only helps the promotion and the developers).

So... you do see the issue here, right? Most of the games come with both a Steam key and a Desura key. If you keep one key and give the extra one to a friend, you're basically taking away any incentive for your friend to buy the bundle. If your friend had no intention of buying the bundle, then no harm done, but if he would have otherwise bought it, you're costing the devs a sale.

I do find it peculiar that you say "only" in reference to helping the promotion and developers. Who else is it supposed to be helping? If you enjoy a game, you should reward the developers. I find that most consumers tend to be extremely narrow-minded. Your spending habits have long-term repercussions that extend beyond just you.

Hadn't thought about the cases where somebody actually plays the game as installed from Desura and giving away the Steam key... are there really that many of such cases, as opposed to they already have the game on Steam and the Desura key is applied automatically?

Hard to say. It's entirely possible, though. For Indie Royale, there's only one key for all the Desura games and I think it's automatically applied as soon as you redeem it on the site if you already have Desura installed. The Steam games have individual keys which have to be activated manually, so those are easier to give away.

jacobvandy wrote on Aug 12, 2012, 22:10:Ha ha, okay buddy. Good luck enforcing that. If I decide to give you some money in exchange for some game keys, whether you call it a purchase or a donation or whatever, they're MINE and I can do whatever I want with them. So screw off.

I can see where the issue would be with reselling the keys, but just giving them away doesn't change the economics of the bundle one iota (apart from possibly increasing a potential buyer's willingness to pay, something that only helps the promotion and the developers).

So... you do see the issue here, right? Most of the games come with both a Steam key and a Desura key. If you keep one key and give the extra one to a friend, you're basically taking away any incentive for your friend to buy the bundle. If your friend had no intention of buying the bundle, then no harm done, but if he would have otherwise bought it, you're costing the devs a sale.

I do find it peculiar that you say "only" in reference to helping the promotion and developers. Who else is it supposed to be helping? If you enjoy a game, you should reward the developers. I find that most consumers tend to be extremely narrow-minded. Your spending habits have long-term repercussions that extend beyond just you.

Hadn't thought about the cases where somebody actually plays the game as installed from Desura and giving away the Steam key... are there really that many of such cases, as opposed to they already have the game on Steam and the Desura key is applied automatically?

jacobvandy wrote on Aug 12, 2012, 22:10:Ha ha, okay buddy. Good luck enforcing that. If I decide to give you some money in exchange for some game keys, whether you call it a purchase or a donation or whatever, they're MINE and I can do whatever I want with them. So screw off.

I can see where the issue would be with reselling the keys, but just giving them away doesn't change the economics of the bundle one iota (apart from possibly increasing a potential buyer's willingness to pay, something that only helps the promotion and the developers).

So... you do see the issue here, right? Most of the games come with both a Steam key and a Desura key. If you keep one key and give the extra one to a friend, you're basically taking away any incentive for your friend to buy the bundle. If your friend had no intention of buying the bundle, then no harm done, but if he would have otherwise bought it, you're costing the devs a sale.

I do find it peculiar that you say "only" in reference to helping the promotion and developers. Who else is it supposed to be helping? If you enjoy a game, you should reward the developers. I find that most consumers tend to be extremely narrow-minded. Your spending habits have long-term repercussions that extend beyond just you.

jacobvandy wrote on Aug 12, 2012, 22:10:Ha ha, okay buddy. Good luck enforcing that. If I decide to give you some money in exchange for some game keys, whether you call it a purchase or a donation or whatever, they're MINE and I can do whatever I want with them. So screw off.

I can see where the issue would be with reselling the keys, but just giving them away doesn't change the economics of the bundle one iota (apart from possibly increasing a potential buyer's willingness to pay, something that only helps the promotion and the developers).

Indie Royale bundles are strictly for personal use only. Sharing Steam keys because you already own a game in the bundle is not allowed. The same applies for Desura keys. If your friend wants a bundle you should gift them or they can purchase it themselves.

The idea behind Indie Royale bundles is to support indie games, we always offer excellent games at a price you cannot beat - so please recognize this and support the developers participating by buying your own bundle.

Ha ha, okay buddy. Good luck enforcing that. If I decide to give you some money in exchange for some game keys, whether you call it a purchase or a donation or whatever, they're MINE and I can do whatever I want with them. So screw off.